Another thought

[girlsteve.livejournal.com]

Yet another thought that occurred to me as a result of a previous post. I was thinking of the girl who was called Starzia because her parents adopted her when she was slightly older and let her choose her own name. I think it's kinda cool that they let her do that, because it is nice that she had some ownership of it if that makes sense.

That said, I think this story proves that there are some issues with letting a little kid pick their own name - she could have ended up called Twinkle, and I'm not sure she'd have been quite so keen on it at 14 :) I was also thinking of a Chinese girl who posted a while back, and said that when she moved to America her parents let her choose her own western name - if I remember right, she choose Stephanie but ended up hating it. The potential problem with letting a kid pick thier own name is that they won't be the same person at 21 as they were at 5, and the reasons they have for picking something might seem really good at the time but not so good later in life. Being called Rose forever just because you were a Doctor Who fan at 4 might not make you like it ten years later, especially if it really doesn't suit you.

On the other hand, there is no guarenteeing that any name will suit a child, or that they'll like it later, just cos their parents picked it out for them.

Does make me think though, if i were in the same position (and I'm quite likely to adopt) that I would give any child that was old enough a list of names I liked and explain to them why I liked them, so that they could choose one and be a part of the process.

WDYT?

Comments

[searlait.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm weird, but I wouldn't change a child's name if I adopted them and they were older than two.